Singing, clapping and shouting for Reial Club Esportiu Espanyol

Every football fan knows F.C. Barcelona as the main team of Barcelona, but there is a smaller team in the city supported by very loyal and enthusiastic public: RCD Espanyol. RCD Espanyol of Barcelona is one of the oldest Spanish football teams of La liga. It was born on October 28^th, 1900, in the University of Barcelona under the name of: Spanish Society of Football, name given by its creator and first president: Ángel Rodríguez.

RCD Espanyol emblem

In spite of today the team is dressed with blue and white colors, the original one was yellow, given to the team by one of its members. A few years later the uniform passed to be composed of a white shirt and blue shorts and, finally, in 1909, the team took the current colors, those which were dressed by the admiral Roger de Llúria while he was defending the Aragon crown of Spain in 1250.

RCD Espanyol trajectory has not been as lauded as FC Barcelona’s, but along its History many great players internationally recognized have played in this team. The most important one was Ricardo Zamora, who gave his name to the current Spanish prize given to the goalkeeping record for each session. But he was not the only one, others like Di Stefano or Kubala also showed their football skills to all RCD Espanyol supporters.

The RCD Espanyol fans are very well known in Spain as some of the most passionate supporters.

They show their loyalty to the team year after year despite all the incidents that their team have to face. Besides the shortage of sport success, other incidents shake the entity. For instance, the team began to play in Sarrià Stadium, but in 1997 the club was forced to move to the Olympic Stadium Lluís Companys of Montjuïc, where played until 2008-2009 session. In July 10^th 2009 Espanyol moved again to its current stadium: Cornellà- El Prat, where the team is playing, between others, against its main opponent: FC Barcelona.

Michael Handforth and Simon Attwood

This is the case of three English guys who Sunday after Sunday go to Cornellà- El prat to encourage the RCD Espanyol: Simon Attwood, Michael Handforth and Jim Chillman. Jim says: “It would be very easy to become a Barça supporter, we like real challenges”. On the other hand Michael and Simon make reference to what they call “the Espanyol feeling”, they say that “in England all audiences are very passionate and Espanyol is the only Spanish team which awakes the same kind of feelings as English teams do. This does not happen in a team like Barça, where everyone is sitting and quiet, Espanyol is different, people are all the time trying to push the team by singing, clapping and shouting.”

RCD Espanyol was able to win four Spanish Cups, in 1929, 1940, 1996 and the last one, in 2006. But the club also has the honor of being present in the first edition of the Spanish La Liga in 1929, scoring the first goal in the History of this competition.

  Photo(Teaser): Living In Pixels (Flickr)